


This Gilded Parade

by cobblepologist



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Arkham Asylum, Body Horror, DC Comics References, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Experimental Style, F/F, Gothic, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lovecraftian, M/M, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Multi, Mutual Pining, Mystery, Psychological Horror, Psychosis, Surreal, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2019-11-05 07:35:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17914583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobblepologist/pseuds/cobblepologist
Summary: "We are both enfeebled," Oswald says when he begins to talk again. Even quieter than usual, but Ed listens. He is speaking just for him. "It's something about the air here. It makes us all easy prey. The nine of us, me and you, need to stick together."There is something seriously wrong with Arkham Asylum.





	1. PROLOGUE: or, the act of whispering

**Author's Note:**

> this au pulls from several of the comics, namely batman eternal / serious house / the last arkham / arkham reborn, but they're not required reading or anything; it's just more based on them than the actual show. this started as a loose suspiria / house of leaves / a cure for wellness au- i mainly write horror irl, so i hope this isn't too unwelcome.

 

>  "When everyone you have ever loved is finally gone,  
>  when everything you have ever wanted is finally done with,  
>  when all of your nightmares are for a time obscured  
>  as by a shining brainless beacon  
>  or a blinding eclipse of the many terrible shapes of this world,  
>  when you are calm and joyful  
>  and finally entirely alone,  
>  then in a great new darkness,  
>  you will finally execute your special plan."
> 
> \- "I Have a Special Plan for This World," Thomas Ligotti

Places can be haunted, just like people can.

We open on an interior, an expansive room, white walls gradually rotting to yellow and brown and black. The ceiling is impossibly high, unreachable, unseeable. Perhaps vines grow downward from it, or it could be a trick of the light. There are windows that reach to it, sublime and decorative. The Gothic kind, like a cathedral, meant to let the light in, but there is no light, just a pervading gray outside. We see ~~prisoners~~  inmates dawdling around, striped clothes torn. Some howl. Others rock. All dread.

This is not a place we want to be. Even the light retreats from this buildings, ashamed of what's inside. Even the doctors know this, on some level, as they make their rounds. Nurses with their pills, low shivers crawling up their spines. All the patients know it much more intimately. Someone jots it down as  _anxiety,_ or  _phobia,_ in dropping medical scrawl.

One such patient catches our attention, our view closing in on him. He is smaller, not meeker, slumped against a far wall. In between windows. Framed by the dreariness, the rain pounding sideways against the glass as if it is trying to get in and touch him. Even if this is not the weather for birds, we hear chirping.

All he requires now is a willing participant. It has been so long, but it will be longer still. OSWALD takes his hand and dusts his fingers against the wall. They come away caked in soot and blood. He inspects them, learns. If he does this enough times, maybe he can wash it away and find what's etched underneath. He has had many predecessors, but he's sure he will be the last. He has to be.

There is his plan. His special plan.


	2. THERAPY: or, a permanent stay of execution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> edward is committed. so is oswald.

> "But never did Henry, as he thought he did,  
>  end anyone and hacks her body up  
>  and hide the pieces, where they may be found.  
>  He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody’s missing.     
>  Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up.  
>  Nobody is ever missing."
> 
> \- "Dream Song 29," John Berryman

  
The Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane.

EDWARD strides down a corridor, following a nurse. He is guided through a labyrinth of tiringly long hallways. Right, then left, left again. Impossibly blue rooms fading into impossibly white ones and fatiguing into impossibly gray. He starts to feel as though he should get his eyesight checked, instead of his head, but that's not what the court order says.

He's glad, though. He'd been in the waiting room for hours. He would've thought all the doctors would've went home by now, but somehow, it still isn't night yet. He wishes it was, though; he needs the rest.

The final room he is led into is a psychiatrist's office by MRS. PEABODY. It is unseasonably warm, color-wise, compared to the rest of the building. Rich browns and reds. Bookshelves, stacked with leather-bound books. A globe, a minibar, a chaise lounge, as stereotypical as it looks. Towards the end of the room is a mahogany desk, case notes spread in front of the Doctor on the other side. There's two seats in front of Ed. The Doctor notices him, and greats him with a smile, ushering him onwards. "Please, take a seat."

Edward takes the one on the left, although his brain screams for him to go right.

Once Ed is situated, the Doctor returns to his notes, pen in hand. "And tell me- Edward, is it? Do you know why you are here today?"

"I tried to hurt my girlfriend, sorry, ex-girlfriend. Or so I'm told. I don't remember it."

The Doctor, HUGO, stops writing and looks down his nose at him, red glasses falling somewhat. "Do you often have these memory lapses?"

Edward nods. "I'm sure it seems hard to believe, but... It's always been this way. I've lost days. But nothing serious ever happened." He looks down, eyes studying the fibers of the carpet. Mumbles softly, "I don't even know what day it is."

"Of course," Hugo says, as if this is something to agree to. "Don't worry, Edward, all will be well. I am going to ask you some questions, give you some tests. Nothing too strenuous, I can assure you. Just for me to get to know you better."

Q: "Has this been going on for long?"  
A: ~~Forever~~. I suppose it's been a while.

Q: "Were you ever abused?"  
A: ~~By my father~~. No, I had a good childhood.

Q: "Have you ever heard or seen things that were not there?"  
A: ~~Constantly~~. Once or twice, but doesn't everyone?

Q: "Do you ever feel as if another person exists within you?"  
A: ~~No. Yes?~~ No.

He tries to answer them all dishonestly.

Hugo moves onto other things. Inkblots. They confuse Edward, more than anything; they don't look symmetrical, in the way that he thought they should. Sometimes, Hugo shows him several of the same one.

There are more tests, logic and IQ puzzles that he aces with stunning accuracy and speed. Hugo seems to be somewhat impressed with this.

In another life, perhaps Hugo would be intimidating. But even the low, heady quality of his voice seems to mimic the rumble of the air vents, as if he's at one with the asylum. He seems just some extension of Edward's surroundings, even as he hunches over his desk and examines his results.

Another inordinate length of time, and finally: "Thank you, Edward. That will be all. Mrs. Peabody will lead you to your new room."

\--- 

No one notices the new inmate despite the clattering of the guards and orderlies and gates as he is led into the common room. No one but Oswald.

This is because Oswald notices everything. This is how he has survived for as long as he has.

Edward takes a seat far away from the others. Of course he would, Oswald thinks, because this is a man who thinks he has been thrown to the savages. _I am not like them,_  he must be saying, when his lip upturns in disgust and his throat begins to tighten. _I don't belong with these people._

Of course, Oswald must find out if he is right. If he is truly different, in the way that he is. So he sneaks over, limps to the table, inconspicuous. The new inmate tilts his head.

"I beat a man who tried to mug my mother within an inch of his life." There is almost no intonation to his voice, except perhaps the subtlest pride. "Once I found out, I followed him home, and I hit him with a baseball bat until he was almost dead."

"Oh?" Edward says, as if he isn't going to play this game, this exchange of _show me yours._  "How quaint. How absolutely terrible."

"I think you've done worse," Oswald retorts, as if he's trying to rile him up. "Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot.

He succeeds, by the way the man sucks in a breath. "I did no such thing. It was an accident. Edward Nygma."

"An accident?" An echo, echo, echo, and Edward's hands are not his own, he is gripping the table until his knuckles turn white.

"An accident, 'Stop, Edward, stop, Edward, you're hurting me,' an accident."

Oswald's eyebrow peaks, but he doesn't seem to realize the scope of what he's done. "Peculiar," he says, and Edward's mouth moves around the word, repeats it involuntarily.

The rest begins to blur. Edward thinks that this will soon heal, if all goes according to plan. The wound in his brain will mend, scarred and deformed but nevertheless functioning. The last thing he sees before he loses time is Oswald's eyes, watery ans exquisite.

\---

When he comes to, he is waking up in his bed, sucking at his teeth. The ceiling is almost impossible to see in the dim light of morning, and especially so without his glasses.

They sit at breakfast together. Or, Edward takes his tray sits across from Oswald. He gives him a long stare, chewing his cheek. Suspicion and aggression.

Edward's about to dig into his fruit cup when he notices. "What's the matter? Paranoid?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," he says. But oh, how he would.

The days are more boring than he would expect. The air is heavy, but there's little to do but sit inside and flip through BARBARA's old magazines. At one point, he's ushered into group therapy, and then individual, but he learns nothing of interest. He sees a man snap his metal chair in half when his father is brought up. Peabody doesn't even flinch, would have seemed not to even notice, save for the click of her pen and some scribbling on her clipboard.

He remembers very little of the individual appointments.

By night, he's drained. For nothing to have happened, he feels like every single muscle of his is overworked. He lines up with Oswald, and extensively, every other inmate after dinner.

"I call this the cocktail," Oswald whispers as they shuffle forward. He's next. He downs the little cup swiftly, smiling brightly to the nurse.

"An alcoholic, then?"

Oswald rolls his eyes. Sticks out his tongue. The pills are still there. "You should see what I do with the nightcap." He bounds away, leaving Edward with his pills.

The hour of free time they have is torture to Edward. It seems there is nothing but free time, nothing to occupy his mind. He mostly sits on the couch next to Oswald in silence, watching men fight over chess pieces. Lights out is a relief.

It seems, on their way back to their rooms, Oswald has deemed him fit for acknowledgment again.

"Perhaps you can help," Oswald says. "But only if you're good." They both lean in conspiratorially, once Oswald's eyes slide around the hall. He stops when they both realize everyone in front of them has vanished around the corner, and no one is behind them. "I have a special plan for this world."

(And THE CHORUS breathes "lament!")

"Amadeus Arkham," Oswald drawls, slowly, quietly, more like a breath.  "The founder. You haven't heard about him? About what happened to his family?"

Ed shakes his head.

"A pity. It really is." He glances away. "He killed his mother. Someone defiled his family. Do you know what he did to them after that? To his own flesh and blood?"

Ed shakes his head again.

"He ate them. And he was the one running the place. He was the sane one." He scoffs. "Then what are we, Ed?"

"I don't- I don't know." He shivers against a backdrop of peeling paint.

Oswald is quiet for a minute, looks away. "Neither do I."

\---

In the days to come Oswald seems to blossom, more fidgety and talkative. Not by much, but Edward certainly notices the degree of trust that has been placed in him, if Oswald is capable of sharing such a thing.

The room they are in for free time today, right after lunch, is much dingier. They must be in the middle of the asylum- they must be- because there are no windows, just vaults and arches, brown brick surrounding them and tiny, warm lights in the pillars. There are cafeteria tables, rusted enough to be a hazard to the more detrimental of them. The room seems to go on forever, and perhaps all of Arkham's inmates are piled in here.

He looks around. There's a ginger that catches his eye in particular, sitting at the table next to theirs. His hair is a mess, and he peers around the room with interest. He smiles when he sees Edward, giving him a wave, before looking off again.

"What does he have?" His eyes never leave the redhead.

"The question is, what doesn't he have?" Oswald scoffs. "JEROME VALESKA. He won't be getting out. Severely psychotic. Way more than you are. Puts the sad in sadomasochistic." When Edward doesn't reply, Oswald stands up a little straighter, a little prouder, and says, "I beat the shit out of him once."

This redirects Edward back to him. "Did you now?"

"Mm-hm. Knee to the face." He is so happy in relaying this, but he rolls his eyes soon after. "He enjoyed it. Laughed the entire time." With a quiet grunt of disgust, "wanted more."

Oswald moves on. There are so many of them, so many characters in this one-act play, that Edward's mind cannot bear to take a hold of all of them. Days (weeks?) ago, he would have catalogued all of this information neatly, discerned names from faces for his own purpose, but the buzzing of the lights and the smell of asylum food makes it harder to concentrate. He loses time more often.

JERVIS TETCH screams "change places" in his head, clattering a cup together. Seconds later, he looks up. Everything is different. Time has passed. No time at all.

"I didn't know Jerome wore glasses."

"He doesn't. That's his twin, JEREMIAH." When Ed looks confused, he adds, "they have to be kept apart. This one likes mazes."

When they approach, he sees the evidence. Jeremiah is hunched over an array of papers, freehanding a maze with all the skill of an architect. He does not look up when they approach, but he says, "do you need something?"

"What are you doing?" Edward peers closer while Oswald flinches, as if he's caused him some further annoyance.

"Cartography," he replies, pencil still gliding across paper. Vaguely, Ed wonders if the staff allowed him this utensil, or if they did not know about it. He is drawing a series of angles and lines, little pathways. In the very middle of the structure is a tree.

"Do you... like mazes?" Always questioning. But he wonders if he does like them, or there's a compulsion, a twitch in his hand. Hypergraphia.

"Everything is a maze," he says, still not looking up. "This whole place is a labyrinth. Maybe. Maybe not. A labyrinth requires an exit, it is _stable._  It does not change."

Edward shivers. He keeps his eyes trained on Jeremiah, but whispers to Oswald, "what does he mean?" His only response is a shrug from his periphery.

"One thing's for certain. Like all labyrinths, this one has a beast."

Edward feels his eyes watering involuntarily.

\---

Edward often finds himself wishing he were in prison. Prison is a word with a definitive end; he will wake up, and he will know there are five, ten, twenty, fifty years left to his sentence. There is a rationale to it, a concrete date, concrete walls, concrete grounding. Here, in Arkham, there is just the word "rehabilitation," hanging in the air like a diseased man. There is no "when," there is only "if."

He attempts to count time, the number of sunsets and sunrises, but Arkham is a place where it seems arbitrary. There are barred windows, of course, but the lighting inside messes with his head, somehow.

\---

It is not hard to find the case file. A bit of bargaining with Jerome, and then Jerome's unnamed friend, this little puppeteer of theirs, is somehow getting him into Strange's office.

He needs to know, perhaps more than the doctors do. Edward is brilliant; if anyone knows how to fix his brain, it's him. He just needs the diagnosis first, the test results, and he can rewire it. Strange's chair is where he belongs.

His eyes scan the paper, but he doesn't find a diagnosis. Instead, he sees a cast list.

EDWARD, many and more, neither and none. Things you leave unanswered.  
MIRROR, the reflection.  
RIDDLER, a consummation.  
QUERY, a question.  
ECHO, a repetition.  
NASHTON, a child.  
PATRICK PARKER, an inclination.  
ENIGMA, a corruption.

He remembers a phrase, "nobody is ever missing," while his tentative whispers and tentative fingers brush over the names. Not when they're all inside of you, of course they're not.

\---

None of the staff at Arkham is helpful; well, except ECCO. He had only seen her a few times before, supplying Jeremiah with pencils and paper and water bottles when he had almost drawn himself dry. The day after his transfusion, his wake-up call, the prickling under his skin, he couldn't leave his bed. And she had been there, black and red all over.

"It gets better, ya know. That's what I was always told."

His eyes are bleary as he tries to focus on the apex of the ceiling. "There's too many at once. A legion, a multitude I am. A system of colonies and complexes. I'm not who I was."

She seems to hum, more to herself than in agreement. "We're never who we were. Not even a few seconds ago." She hoists him up by the armpits; he feels like a ragdoll. He didn't realize she was so freakishly strong, but he had heard that she'd wrangled HELZINGER before, so he's not surprised. "Come on, breakfast's ready."

\---

In therapy, Strange asks him about why he had pursued forensics.

"It's like a puzzle," he says. "There are the clues, imprinted on and inside a body, a crime scene, and I have to put them all together all by myself. It's like one huge jigsaw."

Strange lifts an eyebrow. "They're human lives, Edward, not games."

He tilts his head. "Isn't that what we are to you?"

\---

"What's that noise?" Edward asks, that night, as Oswald and him stalk the long hall, on their way back from group therapy. They will part for the night soon, but the routine is a comfort to him. Oswald will not open up to anyone there, will only sit and listen, but he appreciates hearing what he knows. There is a shuddering sound, like the wind against the trees.

"THE DIRECTOR," he says blandly. "I don't know his name. But I've heard him before. He wheezes."

"Why do you want to know so much about this place, Oswald?"

He eyes Edward. That bit of aggression creeps back in. "I'm trapped here, as are you. Don't tell me you don't care about what goes on in Hugo's strange little head."

"I do, I promise I do, I just-"

"Do you even know what's wrong with you?"

"Um," a sickness creeps up his throat. "Uh, no, I-"

"There's a whole lot of you, _Eddie_." He snarls. "Or should I say _Riddler_? Query? Nasht-"

"Shut up!"

He shouldn't be surprised. If he knows, then of course Oswald would know. He's like God in that way, both behind him and two steps ahead.

It's just so soon after he had seen it, that he shivers. Did Oswald know he had broken in? Had Oswald been there with him?

Or had he know this whole time, just waiting for Ed to find out?

His hands are around Oswald's throat. He is leaning over him, and Oswald is flush against the wall, palms flat against it. For the first time, for the briefest of moments, he looks afraid.

"You can't hurt me," he says, even as he trembles. "You wouldn't know what to do without me. You need me."

"He might, but I don't." A hand closes tighter around his throat, a strangled whimper.

Oswald's own hands go up to his neck, trying to pry off Edward's. He groans. "Ed, please."

He is about to say something, remind him he is not Ed, when something snaps in Oswald's eyes. A softening, not that wild, unbearable look. Before he can say anything, Oswald's hands are pushing rather than pulling, fingers driving his own tighter. His mouth opens, slackjawed, and his eyes droop. Desperate little death wishs, little breaths.

He immediately unhands him, even as Oswald's grip on his stays tight.


	3. WONDERFUL HERE; or, a sonata in the dark

After the incident, which Ed does not remember, Oswald avoids him for a time. A few days. He doesn't know. Time means less and less, and he measures memory by therapy appointments. Nevertheless, he sees Oswald alone, eating by himself, eyeing him for only a few seconds.

 _Don't worry about him Riddler just shook him up you should've been more careful more in control_ , the Other Him says as Ed washes his hands. _Maybe I should talk to him I sure could get him going he'd_  like _me boys always like me._

It's hard enough without Oswald by his side, his favorite parasite. Mutualism doesn't exist, he thinks. No. One always comes out ahead, in whatever case, and with them, it's an alternating encounter. Ed is a leech, siphoning blood, and Oswald is mistletoe on a tree.

In any case, Ed leaves him alone.

Then, like nothing had happened, Oswald is back at his side, almost clinging to him. Oswald's hand encircling his arm. He is quieter now.

Oswald is strong, but perhaps he had been stronger, once. Something that Ed had never seen in him is missing. He can tell. He wishes he could help Oswald find it again.

"We are both enfeebled," Oswald says when he begins to talk again. Even quieter than usual, but Ed listens. He is speaking just for him. "It's something about the air here. It makes us all easy prey. The nine of us, me and you, need to stick together."

"The eight of us are at war," Edward says. "What makes you think we need one of you?"

Oswald shrugs, like the answer doesn't matter. A question reveals more about the asker.

* * *

When Edward first met Oswald, he thought a lot about how perfect a fit they were, him with his broken body and Edward with his broken mind.

Later, when he told him this over dinner, Oswald had scowled and wrinkled his nose. Stabbing at sweet potatoes with his fork, he said, "my body isn't flawed, it's just different."

Edward begins to think of himself like this. Not imperfect, just different.

* * *

They are in the common room one day, Edward pouring over books as Oswald watches the others, when his head snaps up suddenly. Edward scans the other patients, squinting, then blinking. "Where did TABITHA go?"

"She hasn't been seen in a week." Oswald says. He is leaned back, but not relaxed. Still suspicious.

"What about- HELZINGER? I haven't seen him either."

"Aaron is missing an amygdala, Edward. I'm sure he just wandered off. You know how easy it is to get eaten up by this place." Oswald is right, of course, and Edward knows this. He thinks a lot about Arkham, as an institution and not a place, carving away the flesh of Aaron's brain. He wonders what he was like before. Not that he will ever know.

Ed shifts. "There's also Fries. Is there some sort of solitary somewhere, some place they take-"

"That's not it, Ed. You and I both know it."

He is silent for a time, book closing quietly. "Will we ever be safe? Are we next?"

"I don't know."

Then, curls in on himself slowly, spindley legs drawn up. "Should I be so afraid? Does it want us, too?" His voice is higher, keens. "What are they doing?"

Oswald snaps to attention, faces him. "Query," he says, in realization. "No, whatever is- whatever is going on, I won't let them hurt you, or Ed, or anyone. We'll stop it, I promise."

* * *

Ed returns to him after a while. Like a marionette changing hands. His mouth is always dry after the switch.

"Why won't you tell me what's wrong with you?" Bitterest voice, like the pills they give him at night to placate him. "Why are you allowed to be perfect?"

Oswald's eyes twinkle at that. "One must maintain appearances, one supposes."

"You know all of my secrets. Tell me one of yours."

"Write me a poem first. Tell me how I'm brighter than all the stars in the sky."

Throat still rough. "More like a black hole. You take in everything around you. You trapped me."

Oswald laughs, a light thing. "Alright. I'll let you know one thing. Strange might have called me a borderline narcissist. Or a narcissistic borderline. Who can keep all of this straight, anyway."

"What else?" Edward breathes in the words like they can solve a part of this puzzle.

"Oh no, dear. You already got two for the price of one. Try to keep up."

* * *

"Jerome," he says, one day. "Jeremiah." Oswald does not look up from his magazine. "What happened to them?"

"You ask a lot of questions for someone who asks why I know so much," Oswald murmurs, blankly flipping a page.

"Just another one of my questions. Why do they hate each other?"

Oswald looks at him out of the corner of his eye. There's something there like judgement, but also sympathy. "How do you feel when you look in a mirror?" Edward swallows.

"What got them in here?"

"How do you feel when you look at your parents?"

Edward swallows.

"A sore spot, I see."

"I would just think they would care for each other, is all. They are all they know."

Oswald laughs as he adjusts his glasses. "Oh, and how can you be so certain? You don't know them, Ed. You've been hanging out with your therapists too much."

The truth is, Edward would like to see them next to each other instead. He is tired of doing double-takes when he sees one of them, never sure and always sure he had just seen that one or this one somewhere else. He is tired of running in circles.

* * *

Oswald might have his plan, and he may tell Edward nothing of it, but this does not stop Ed from concocting his own course of action. He wants Oswald in a way that the staff would describe as "an acute onset of dangerous desire." He sees it in the rest of him, too. In Other Him gloating, in Riddler's glances at Oswald. Something he can not control. All of them are drawn to him in the same manner. Magnetism, they call it.

 _It's something in the air,_ the mirror says to him, one day.  _Or, no, in the ground. Deep beneath the earth. Swallowed whole. Hole._

"What do you mean?" Ed's eyes narrow as he sits on his bed, flipping through transcript after transcript. He's taken to the offices. He thinks that by digging through the patient records he will find something, something that will clue him into what is happening. Incident reports, psychiatrists' notes, even the layout of the buildings. Anything. But it never helps.

_Listen._

And he does, presses his ear to the wall. There it is, a faint noise. There's almost a musical quality to it.

And he realizes what this symphony is. He had heard it once before, after all. The Director.

"That's impossible," he says. His twin apparition shakes his head in the window.

Last time he checked, the Director slept far, far away, several hallways down. He swallows.

* * *

"Jeremiah," he says, announcing himself with all the candor he can muster. The man pays him no mind, doesn't even look up from his drawings.

"Yes?" The lack of eye contact would unnerve anyone else, Ed supposes. Make them feel like a ghost in someone else's home.

"Have you ever tried to- you're an architect too, right? You draw blueprints, plans? Have you ever tried to draw the layout of Arkham?"

Jeremiah's hand stops abruptly, and he finally looks up. "Oh," he says. " _Oh,_ that's very funny."

A distaste in his mouth, the warm feeling of biting into skin. "What is?"

"What do you think I've  _been_ doing?" And he laughs, a quiet little chuckle, and then a prolonged giggle, snickering to himself as he hunches over and begins to draw again.

Edward eyes the mazes beneath his pencil, the intricate, sprawling lines of impossible walls and angles. His mouth dries up, and he backs away, towards the cafeteria line. He almost feels too sick to eat.

Nevertheless, at lunch, he waits for Oswald. Slow today. He hasn't seen him much, both of them being shipped off to treatment early.

He sees Jerome hanging off of Zsasz, a hand wrapped in his shirt. The other carresses up his arm, digs his nails into the scars and open wounds lining them. Victor just smiles back, murmurs something Ed assumes is praise.

He hates it. He wants to grab Jerome and shake him, knock his head against a pole until it splits open. That banana peel grin that he and his brother have, always mocking him, reminding him that everyone in here seems to be in on something that he isn't.

Eventually, Oswald hobbles over to their table, looking more irritated than usual. It's hard for Ed to redirect his attention back to him.

"What's with them?"

"What isn't with them," Oswald responds gruffly, setting down his tray and taking a seat.

Edward blinks. "You've used that one before."

Oswald sighs, staring too intently at his mashed potatoes, "they like each other. What do you care?"

"I don't, I just-" He is fighting a losing battle. It is his turn to sigh and look at his food. "They're a good match, is all."

Oswald's eyes dart up. "Not as good as us." Before Edward can reply, mouth already hanging open, he adds, "I didn't mean it like that."

"I didn't take it like that." _But oh, he'd take him if he could._  "You're in a bad mood today." It's an observation, not a question. He is too, after all, but his rage is directed elsewhere, in sporadic moments.

"Yes, I suppose so." Oswald holds tight to the plastic spork in his fist. He once told Edward that they used to have mental utensils, until Tabitha scooped out someone's eye. He doesn't believe him, not really, but it made him laugh.

Edward taps his own spork against the tray, a frustrated exhale, a grinding of his foot into the floor. "When are you going to explain this plan of yours to me?"

Oswald looks shocked, and not shocked. As if he was expecting the question, but not the timing. "Whether you know it or not, you already know it. Maybe you don't comprehend it, not yet, but I'm sure you have an inkling. And an inkling goes farther than a portrait here, my friend."

"Enough with the vagueness," he hisses.

"I thought you liked riddles."

"Not ones that have no answer, ones that are impossible to solve." He breathes deeply, his body flares. "A mystery has one clear, clever solution. It is not an abstraction."

Jerome's been laughing for a while now, in the background, but incessant. A cacophany. Oswald begins to laugh, too. "Look around you. Maybe outside, yes, it would be clear, clever. But here? We deal in this. Fire with fire."

And Edward knows Oswald is right, even when he looks around and it feels as if their table has shifted, almost imperceptibly. That Oswald is right, and this is what's wrong; but he's beginning to feel queasy again, as if the ground is humming and shaking. As if his treatment is an adverse effect.


End file.
